Thursday, October 11, 2007

European Armenian Federation for Justice and Democracy hails vote on resolution

The European Armenian Federation for Justice and Democracy, the most prominent Armenian lobby in the European Parliament has just issued a press release (only in French for the moment) hailing the Foreign Affairs Committee vote. The Federation expresses gratitude to all forces that voiced support for the passing of the resolution:
hundreds of American activists, human rights organizations, from various religious backgrounds, representatives of various minority groups [...] Of particular importance is the support of Jewish organizations, that did not withdraw their support in spite of recent threats to the Turkish Jewish community by Mr Babacan, chief negotiator for Turkish accession to the European Union."
On the diplomatic front, Erdogan, in a bold but not unusual move, has just required from his AKP party, to vote the invasion of Iraqi Kurdistan by Turkish troops. Clearly, Turkey is blackmailing the United States and thus raises the pressure quite high.

1 comment:

Amos said...

I think Turkish public opinion sees a connection between America's alleged betrayal of Turkey in Iraq and on the Armenian Genocide, but I don't think the decision by Erdogan to approve (in theory) a large-scale cross-border incursion into Iraqi Kurdistan was influenced by the genocide resolution developments. The decision was long due, and it comes on the heels of a particularly bloody month for Turkish troops in the counter-insurgency against the PKK. However, I believe that large sectors of the Turkish public view the indifference to Turkish interests shown by the U.S. in Iraq and the alleged bias against Turkey with respect to genocide recognition as evidence of an anti-Turkish American conspiracy.

I saw signs from a demonstration by Turkish students, on the frontpage of the Turkish Daily News English print edition, which referred to the U.S. as the murderer of Turkish soldiers who had been killed by PKK terrorists.